


i don't kiss losers and i don't kiss winners

by shakespearesque



Category: Union J (Band)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, cuddly, i am brave i am strong i am woman, i feel weird knowing george sees things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearesque/pseuds/shakespearesque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someone says something derogatory towards George and Josh just gut reaction punches them right in the nose. Basically, Josh suddenly defending George and George holding frozen peas on his hand and being kind of really into Josh's powerful reaction."</p><p>from the gosh shared birthday ficathon!</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't kiss losers and i don't kiss winners

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i like to call it "creative lying"
> 
> also, sorry for the weird mixture of americanisms/britishisms!

George isn’t really sure why the phrase “split second” is the phrase “split second” until a split second thing happens to him and all of a sudden there’s blood and snot and spit and who knows what else on Josh’s hand and there’s glass all on the floor and ice in George’s shoe.

A split second is basically a normal second, just faster. It’s fast as hell. George and Josh had been walking over to Jaymi and JJ who were talking to Jade Little Mix on the sofa. Josh had squealed, sort of, excited about Jade being at Rylan’s stupid X-Factor-people party, and George had laughed and tugged on his wrist to make him go over to talk to her and he’d blushed and grinned, resisting, and then Jaymi had caught Josh’s eye and beckoned him over and he couldn’t well ignore _Jaymi_. And they’d been walking over and Josh had been all crowded up next to George, nervous, and a short guy’d sort of bumped George and spilled some of his beer and then looked up at him and called him a “fucking girly-looking queer” and then it happened, split second, and Josh was staring wide-eyed at the short guy clutching his face in pain, blood trickling in a thin track down over the guy’s lips and chin and George was staring wide-eyed at Josh and it was loud in there so it hadn’t caused a scene but Jesus Christ.

Split second. Back to the present. George searches Josh’s face for something and finds a wince in pain, now, and maybe a bit of anger. He brings his left hand up, still curled lightly into a fist, stares at it like he didn’t know he was a lefty. George didn’t know he was a lefty. There are loads of things George wants to say right now to diffuse the weird tension he feels or make sense of what just happened or check to see if Jaymi’d seen it but what he ends up saying is,

“I didn’t know you were a lefty.”

Josh chokes on a laugh, stares at his knuckles. “That fucking hurt.”

“I bet it did,” George says vaguely. He’s never punched anyone before, but he can imagine it hurts.

“That…I didn’t mean to, like.” Josh is biting his lip now, flicking his eyes between the drink on the floor and blood on his hand and George’s face and George still doesn’t know exactly what to say yet. The short guy’s gone, at least, but in a second he’s replaced by Jaymi.

“Fuck, Joshua,” Jaymi rasps, hands around Josh’s wrists. “Why the hell’d you do that?” He’s doing an almost-grin like he can’t believe Josh just clocked a guy at a party and he can’t decide whether to be embarrassed or awed. Josh just shakes his head and turns out of Jaymi’s grasp and walks towards the kitchen, or what George is pretty sure is the kitchen—what George hopes is the kitchen, because he’s following him in there and he’ll be able to be somewhat helpful if they’re in the kitchen.

“Josh,” George says quietly. There’s no one else in the tiny room. Rylan’s blocked off an area of his flat because he’s like that, and now George is in an off-limits room with his bandmate who less than five minutes ago punched a guy in the nose for being rude to him. For being rude to George. For saying something stupid and probably drunk.

“Josh,” George tries again, watching Josh at the sink, washing his hand gingerly. Josh turns to him and pouts and George bites his lip. “Here, you need ice or something,” he says, and he goes to the freezer and digs around Rylan’s freezer-burnt selection of vegetables for something suitable.

“I like broccoli,” Josh murmurs after listening to George rifle around for a bit, body still facing the sink.

George flips a couple of bags over. “Fresh out, I’m afraid,” he says, wanting to grin so badly at Josh but trying his hardest not to. “Peas okay?”

Josh turns fully around, finally, and smiles at George and nods. “I guess we can make that work.”

George lets himself smile back. “Come here,” he murmurs, gripping the frozen bag of peas in his hand, still sitting cross-legged on the floor. Josh slumps off the edge of the sink and gets down on the linoleum next to George, still holding his left fist like he’s scared he’ll hurt it more. George smiles helpfully at him and gently places the cold bag over Josh’s knuckles, holding it there with his other hand.

“That was a goddamn good punch, I have to say,” Josh mumbles after a minute, making both of them laugh. George shifts the bag of peas a little on Josh’s hand.

“How’s this?” George asks. He’s still sort of in shock that Josh even did that. Punched a guy. He doesn’t know why Josh did it. He wants to ask if Josh _himself_ knows but he doesn’t want to mess anything up, if there even is anything to mess up, and he doesn’t want to like. He doesn’t want to, like, make Josh feel bad about it in any way, because it was kind of awesome. It was really awesome.

“Alright,” Josh says.

George swallows, lessens the pressure of the bag on Josh’s fist, cocks his head and looks at Josh. “That was cool of you,” he says, finally.

Josh shrugs and doesn't miss a beat: “That guy was an arsehole.”

George pulls the now-dripping bag of peas off of Josh’s knuckles and stares at him, still holding onto Josh’s loose fist. “Yeah, but most people don’t do anything to stand up to arseholes.”

Josh grins reluctantly. “Knocking someone in the face isn’t exactly the best thing to do.”

“I still thought it was cool,” George says. Hot, though, he means hot. George thought it was hot, now that he’s thinking about it.

“Thanks,” Josh says. He takes George’s hand with the cold peas in it and holds it to his bruise-blossoming knuckles. Josh’s right hand is warm on George’s and George grins up at him.

He doesn’t say anything for a bit, just icing Josh’s hand, until he suddenly can’t sit still anymore, too close to Josh but with too few vertices of contact between them. He wriggles around a little on the floor, adjusts his hand on the peas, hopes his phone is tucked safely into his pocket, stares at Josh’s sneaker.

“What?” Josh asks.

“Nothing,” George says, too-quickly.

Josh gives him this look that says something like “you said ‘nothing’ too quickly” and uncurls his fingers under the bag of peas, smirking.

“How’s your hand?” George asks, feeling the shift of the peas. It’s a sincere question, but it’s also to distract Josh, and they both know it.

“It’s better,” Josh says, smirking. “Do you want to kiss me right now?”

George chokes on air. Spluttering, he tosses the peas to the floor and curls his now-freezing hand in his other hand to warm it up, decidedly not looking at Josh. How the fuck did he know? Still coughing. Trying to right the flow of oxygen into his lungs and also figure out what the hell he’s supposed to say. He can’t well say “yes” because he’s not an idiot but he can’t well say “no,” either, or else he’d be lying to Josh. He’s not a liar. He might be less innocent than he looks but he couldn’t _lie_ to Josh. He goes for a neutral

“Mayb—”

but only gets through 80% of the word because—split second—Josh’s got his cold, wet hand on George’s cheek and he’s all up in his space and he nudges his nose against George’s and George wants so badly to bite his lip out of nervous habit but he’s frozenlikepeas and Josh is too close anyway and Josh goes in and brushes soft, dry lips against George’s and George melts. He thinks it sounds stupid when people say they “melt” but he’d been frozen and now he’s not and Josh is pressing in more, and George knows he can press back and Josh opens his mouth to George when George realizes this is what he needed and groans, and Josh’s cold hand is giving George goosebumps down his right side but he’s so warm. He sucks on Josh’s bottom lip and Josh licks out and into George’s mouth and George is making these little soft moans into Josh’s mouth and suddenly he remembers his hands. He remembers them and he gently cradles Josh’s bruised fist in one hand and slides himself closer to Josh with the other one and Josh sighs through his nose and presses one last kiss to George’s redred lips and rescinds his injured hand and sits back, grinning indulgently.

George doesn’t really know what to say, still. 

“Yeah?” Josh says at last, quietly, licking his pinkened bottom lip into his mouth, still grinning.

George squeaks out a giggle. “Yeah, I guess,” he says, grinning back, biting his own pink bottom lip.

“You guess?” Josh laughs.

George wrinkles his nose, smirking, and looks at Josh meaningfully, not saying anything.

Josh looks down at his knuckles, pausing thoughtfully for a long time as if he’s trying to phrase something he’s wanted to say for a while. “That’s, um,” he says, clearing his throat, “that’s why I did it then, I _guess_.” 

George blinks a few times. He really can be like a cartoon character sometimes. It seems Josh is kind of a mind reader sometimes, as well. “Oh?” he says. “So that means we can do that other thing again, maybe?” He grins hopefully.

Josh laughs. “If you give me more people to punch for you,” he says, and it makes George giggle.

“Don’t punch anyone else,” he says definitively.

“Don’t kiss anyone else,” Josh says, and basically that’s that.

**Author's Note:**

> what does one do with fic in the union j fandom
> 
> i feel like we need to be like "hello george" at the beginning of everything
> 
> this is unusual, okay


End file.
